I didn't make this one, but it is perfect. And the gifs...
The 59 Best Songs For The Soul Train Line At Your Family Reunion
Thursday, June 26, 2014
Best party/reunion Soul Train playlist ever
I make playlists and post the best of them here.
I didn't make this one, but it is perfect. And the gifs...
I didn't make this one, but it is perfect. And the gifs...
Saturday, May 3, 2014
Remember the day we elected a Black man president?
Where were you on election night, 2008? Seems so long ago, doesn't it - the night we first elected Barack Obama President of the United States of America.
He's been our president for almost six years now - one and half terms. My world of progressive, liberal, solidly democratic friends has differing views on his presidency. Some are disillusioned - he didn't live up to their hope for great, radical change. Some feel he's done the best he can in a landscape of partisan gridlock and tea-party-fueled racial hatred, and that he has accomplished a lot. I'm in that camp, for the record, but both points of view are valid.
Yet in 2014, wherever your politics fall, in so many ways he is President Obama first, and President-Obama-the-first-Black-president second - or at least that fact is less sharply in view. We are used to him. We have watched his daughters grow up and we have watched Michelle Obama be awesome as she makes her way as First Lady with such panache (which is probably such an act of buttoning up her full self that we under appreciate what she is actually pulling off).
But let's go back. Let's remember our own personal Nov 4, 2008 and what that moment in time felt like as we gathered to watch in wonder and disbelief as - in our lifetimes, our children's lifetimes, our parents' lifetimes, and for some our grandparents' lifetimes - we elected an African American man president of these racist United States.
I'm awash with those feelings right now. I am three quarters of the way through Americanah, (click on the link if you don't know about this amazing piece of literature by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie) and just finished her recounting of electing Obama president, and so my memories have flooded back and I'm am sharing them now, free flow unedited blog style, before they recede and fade back to gray.
A small group gathered at my house, some of my circle of black, brown, and white lesbian friends, my spouse, my adult daughter, my young granddaughter, a friend's adult child, and another friend's small child. We watched history unfold, together. We were abuzz with excitement and anticipation as the results rolled in. We held our breaths and waited, and maybe prayed. And then all joyous hell broke loose and soon we watched with utter amazement and unabashed jubilance as this beautiful, brilliant man and his beautiful family emerged from the darkness of election night out into the lighted stage of Grant Park in Chicago to speak to the world as President-Elect Barack Obama. It was a moment where everything seemed possible because we had just achieved the impossible.
My granddaughter is now nine and her only conscious memory of a U.S. president is of Barack Obama, and of the First Family at the White House being a Black family. This may not occur again in her lifetime, but think about this - the foundation of her thinking about power and leadership and what is normal and expected includes this reality - that the guy in charge and his family look like her family, even down to the intricacies of interracial extended families. For me, this is something at least as powerful as whatever President Obama accomplishes or doesn't in his two terms - that utterly profound shift in point of view about what is possible AND what is normal.
So while we go about our daily lives in 2014 (it's time for me to go grocery shopping), whether you are disappointed with President Obama for the drones, or pipelines, or not doing enough for Black people and poor people; or if you love him almost without exception for who he is, what he is trying to accomplish and has accomplished, and because he achieved this "first" and changed the world forever - take a step back into your memory and your heart and remember the night of Nov. 4, 2008 and how it felt to see the world crack open and possibility explode ten thousand fold.
Here are a couple of snapshots and a video that are a part of my experience. I hope this post and these images inspire you to look back, too. Thank you, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, for pages 437-449 of your book, and the sharpness with which you painted that night and helped me to float for just a while in my own memories of that remarkable moment in time.
He's been our president for almost six years now - one and half terms. My world of progressive, liberal, solidly democratic friends has differing views on his presidency. Some are disillusioned - he didn't live up to their hope for great, radical change. Some feel he's done the best he can in a landscape of partisan gridlock and tea-party-fueled racial hatred, and that he has accomplished a lot. I'm in that camp, for the record, but both points of view are valid.
Yet in 2014, wherever your politics fall, in so many ways he is President Obama first, and President-Obama-the-first-Black-president second - or at least that fact is less sharply in view. We are used to him. We have watched his daughters grow up and we have watched Michelle Obama be awesome as she makes her way as First Lady with such panache (which is probably such an act of buttoning up her full self that we under appreciate what she is actually pulling off).
But let's go back. Let's remember our own personal Nov 4, 2008 and what that moment in time felt like as we gathered to watch in wonder and disbelief as - in our lifetimes, our children's lifetimes, our parents' lifetimes, and for some our grandparents' lifetimes - we elected an African American man president of these racist United States.
I'm awash with those feelings right now. I am three quarters of the way through Americanah, (click on the link if you don't know about this amazing piece of literature by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie) and just finished her recounting of electing Obama president, and so my memories have flooded back and I'm am sharing them now, free flow unedited blog style, before they recede and fade back to gray.
A small group gathered at my house, some of my circle of black, brown, and white lesbian friends, my spouse, my adult daughter, my young granddaughter, a friend's adult child, and another friend's small child. We watched history unfold, together. We were abuzz with excitement and anticipation as the results rolled in. We held our breaths and waited, and maybe prayed. And then all joyous hell broke loose and soon we watched with utter amazement and unabashed jubilance as this beautiful, brilliant man and his beautiful family emerged from the darkness of election night out into the lighted stage of Grant Park in Chicago to speak to the world as President-Elect Barack Obama. It was a moment where everything seemed possible because we had just achieved the impossible.
My granddaughter is now nine and her only conscious memory of a U.S. president is of Barack Obama, and of the First Family at the White House being a Black family. This may not occur again in her lifetime, but think about this - the foundation of her thinking about power and leadership and what is normal and expected includes this reality - that the guy in charge and his family look like her family, even down to the intricacies of interracial extended families. For me, this is something at least as powerful as whatever President Obama accomplishes or doesn't in his two terms - that utterly profound shift in point of view about what is possible AND what is normal.
So while we go about our daily lives in 2014 (it's time for me to go grocery shopping), whether you are disappointed with President Obama for the drones, or pipelines, or not doing enough for Black people and poor people; or if you love him almost without exception for who he is, what he is trying to accomplish and has accomplished, and because he achieved this "first" and changed the world forever - take a step back into your memory and your heart and remember the night of Nov. 4, 2008 and how it felt to see the world crack open and possibility explode ten thousand fold.
Here are a couple of snapshots and a video that are a part of my experience. I hope this post and these images inspire you to look back, too. Thank you, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, for pages 437-449 of your book, and the sharpness with which you painted that night and helped me to float for just a while in my own memories of that remarkable moment in time.
Grandbaby, age 3
My daughter and me
Yes we can!!
Moments before the election was called...
And a few TV shots of what followed. (There are no photos of our victory hugs and screams because we were all living it, not recording it).
Monday, April 7, 2014
Playlist: Spring Freedom and Aries Fire!
I'm a wannabe DJ and over the years I've made hundreds of mixtapes and playlists. Here's one for the arrival of spring (finally!) and the ignition of (my) Aries fire. Let's dance and make love with life together!
Spring Freedom and Aries Fire!
1. Happy, Pharrell Williams
2. P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing), Michael
Jackson
3. The Way You Make Me Feel, Michael
Jackson
4. Ms. Jackson, OutKast
5. So Fresh, So Clean, OutKast
6. Sexy M.F., Prince
7. Money Don't Matter 2 Night. Prince
8. Diamonds And Pearls, Prince
9. Now That We Found Love, Heavy D
& The Boyz
10. Family Affair, Sly & The Family
Stone
11. Somebody Else's Guy, Jocelyn Brown
12. Best of My Love, The Emotions
13. Green Garden, Laura Mvula
14. Q.U.E.E.N., Janelle Monáe (feat.
Erykah Badu)
15. Shame, Jill Scott (feat. Eve and
The A Group)
16. People Everyday, Arrested
Development
17. Gettin' Jiggy Wit It, Will Smith
18. Switch, Will Smith
19. Let's Stay Together, Al Green
20. I'm Still In Love With You, Al
Green
By DJ Dancing Diva, April 2014
Bonus Aries Horoscope (by Rob Breszny):
ARIES (March
21-April 19): Freedom is the most important kind of joy you
can seek right now. It's also the most important subject to study and
think about, as well as the most important skill to hone. I advise you to
make sure that freedom is flowing through your brain and welling up in
your heart and spiraling through your loins. Write synonyms for "freedom"
on your arm with a felt-tip pen: liberation, emancipation, independence,
leeway, spaciousness, carte blanche, self-determination, dispensation.
Here's one more tip: Connect yourself with people who love and cultivate
the same type of freedom you do.
can seek right now. It's also the most important subject to study and
think about, as well as the most important skill to hone. I advise you to
make sure that freedom is flowing through your brain and welling up in
your heart and spiraling through your loins. Write synonyms for "freedom"
on your arm with a felt-tip pen: liberation, emancipation, independence,
leeway, spaciousness, carte blanche, self-determination, dispensation.
Here's one more tip: Connect yourself with people who love and cultivate
the same type of freedom you do.
Other playlists posted to this blog:
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Missing my mother
April includes three dates in my family - my son's birthday, my birthday, and the day my mother died.
This year marks the tenth anniversary of her passing, and as "the date" approaches, I'm living in a whole new kind of sorrow. My mom died as a result of pancreatic cancer, one of the more horrible cancers because by the time you learn you have it, it's advanced and the march to death is painful, unrelenting, and swift - even with aggressive treatment and an iron will to live, both of which my mother had. She was only 70, just 12 years older than I'll be in a couple weeks, to put that into perspective.
In the beginning I traveled through the raw grief that comes with the death of a parent. After a few years, I moved to mostly acceptance, my grief a constant little whisper in the background of my busy life. Sometimes things would trigger a louder grief and tears - always unexpectedly. Something would remind me of her, or wishing she was part of a milestone or an everyday event. But mostly it was just the whisper.
Then, beginning a year or so ago, something shifted and I started missing my mother in a whole new kind of way. So much time gone by and so much life where she wasn't. I longed to talk to her, to ask her things about my own aging process, for example. "Did you experience this, too?"
This new grief is for the relationship we could have had over these last ten years - one that could have been closer, richer than what we had before, because of my own inner growth and evolution.
I had a great childhood - two parents who loved and cared for me, who had the resources and desire to support their kids' pursuits and dreams, who insisted we do well in school and go to college, and that we make the most of our talents to make a difference in the world. Yet, between the lines of this happy childhood was an emotional distance that hurt my heart and that I used to blame on them.
Our unspoken family motto was, "Everything's great!" It still is. So as a kid, for example, when I would run to my mom with hurt feelings, she would tell me, "Oh honey, it's okay, don't get upset, you're just fine." But I wasn't fine. What I longed to hear was affirmation of my hurt. "That must have been so hurtful. Let me give you a hug." But it was not our way and over the years, beginning in adolescence, I stepped away from emotional intimacy and kept my parents at a loving arm's length.
Did my mom know how sad, ashamed and hurt I was that no one invited me to the prom, or even wanted to be my boyfriend in high school? That in some ways I was a victim of being bullied? Maybe, but I'll never know. Even if we weren't in a place to go there when I was 17, surely I could talk to her about it now.
I never told her I about the abortion I had at 20 while in college (though she was a strong proponent of a woman's right to choose), or even that I was having sex at all. I never shared the interior of my adult struggles. Not when I was going through my divorce, coming out, single parenting, or my children making terrible choices with terrible consequences. Or the heartbreak in my early lesbian relationships. My parents knew the facts, but not the feelings.
I didn't figure out until it was too late, until after my mom had died, that I was as responsible for our emotional distance as my parents were - that I was the one who closed down and stopped trying.
It's just been in the last decade, thanks to my journey with my spouse Susan, that I've learned, really learned, that to make an intimate relationship successful you have to accept people as they are, meet them where they are at, and bring your unwavering authentic self to them. I've known those sorts of ideas forever, of course (lots of therapy and self-help books, and Oprah), but only in my relationship and marriage with Susan have I experienced what those ideas mean and the powerful transformation that acting upon them can bring.
I totally get that my mom and I would have never achieved some fantasy daily-talk-on-the-phone-go-shopping-the-first-person-I-called-when-trouble-hit mother/daughter relationship, but if I had evolved more quickly we could have had so much more than we did.
I could have brought more of my whole self to her, and then flowed with her into whatever relationship would have grown from there. I've had the opportunity to do just that with my dad and it's been lovely, and healing.
As April rolls in, my sorrow and grief are loud and present. It's the missed chance to bring a better me to my wonderful mom.
If only we had had a little more time.
This year marks the tenth anniversary of her passing, and as "the date" approaches, I'm living in a whole new kind of sorrow. My mom died as a result of pancreatic cancer, one of the more horrible cancers because by the time you learn you have it, it's advanced and the march to death is painful, unrelenting, and swift - even with aggressive treatment and an iron will to live, both of which my mother had. She was only 70, just 12 years older than I'll be in a couple weeks, to put that into perspective.
In the beginning I traveled through the raw grief that comes with the death of a parent. After a few years, I moved to mostly acceptance, my grief a constant little whisper in the background of my busy life. Sometimes things would trigger a louder grief and tears - always unexpectedly. Something would remind me of her, or wishing she was part of a milestone or an everyday event. But mostly it was just the whisper.
Then, beginning a year or so ago, something shifted and I started missing my mother in a whole new kind of way. So much time gone by and so much life where she wasn't. I longed to talk to her, to ask her things about my own aging process, for example. "Did you experience this, too?"
This new grief is for the relationship we could have had over these last ten years - one that could have been closer, richer than what we had before, because of my own inner growth and evolution.
I had a great childhood - two parents who loved and cared for me, who had the resources and desire to support their kids' pursuits and dreams, who insisted we do well in school and go to college, and that we make the most of our talents to make a difference in the world. Yet, between the lines of this happy childhood was an emotional distance that hurt my heart and that I used to blame on them.
Our unspoken family motto was, "Everything's great!" It still is. So as a kid, for example, when I would run to my mom with hurt feelings, she would tell me, "Oh honey, it's okay, don't get upset, you're just fine." But I wasn't fine. What I longed to hear was affirmation of my hurt. "That must have been so hurtful. Let me give you a hug." But it was not our way and over the years, beginning in adolescence, I stepped away from emotional intimacy and kept my parents at a loving arm's length.
Did my mom know how sad, ashamed and hurt I was that no one invited me to the prom, or even wanted to be my boyfriend in high school? That in some ways I was a victim of being bullied? Maybe, but I'll never know. Even if we weren't in a place to go there when I was 17, surely I could talk to her about it now.
I never told her I about the abortion I had at 20 while in college (though she was a strong proponent of a woman's right to choose), or even that I was having sex at all. I never shared the interior of my adult struggles. Not when I was going through my divorce, coming out, single parenting, or my children making terrible choices with terrible consequences. Or the heartbreak in my early lesbian relationships. My parents knew the facts, but not the feelings.
I didn't figure out until it was too late, until after my mom had died, that I was as responsible for our emotional distance as my parents were - that I was the one who closed down and stopped trying.
It's just been in the last decade, thanks to my journey with my spouse Susan, that I've learned, really learned, that to make an intimate relationship successful you have to accept people as they are, meet them where they are at, and bring your unwavering authentic self to them. I've known those sorts of ideas forever, of course (lots of therapy and self-help books, and Oprah), but only in my relationship and marriage with Susan have I experienced what those ideas mean and the powerful transformation that acting upon them can bring.
I totally get that my mom and I would have never achieved some fantasy daily-talk-on-the-phone-go-shopping-the-first-person-I-called-when-trouble-hit mother/daughter relationship, but if I had evolved more quickly we could have had so much more than we did.
I could have brought more of my whole self to her, and then flowed with her into whatever relationship would have grown from there. I've had the opportunity to do just that with my dad and it's been lovely, and healing.
As April rolls in, my sorrow and grief are loud and present. It's the missed chance to bring a better me to my wonderful mom.
If only we had had a little more time.
Thursday, March 27, 2014
"Happy" as a protest song, woah
I hope you have listened to and watched the video of Pharrell Williams's song, Happy. If not, or you just want to watch it again (Yes, I love feeling like a room without a roof!), here it is.
Like most everyone else, I love this song. I first learned about it before I knew it was written for and connected to the movie, Despicable Me 2, when a friend sent me a link to the video 24 Hours of Happy. I loved, loved how it featured everyday dancers and the celebration of, well, dancing and being happy! I thought the song would come and go in a few months, like all snappy pop songs do.
But it didn't. Something remarkable happened. It became a global protest song.
The amazing post by Shan Wang on PolicyMic, "How This Became the Surprising Protest Song of Our Generation," breaks it down perfectly. Read the whole thing, but here are a few excerpts:
I came of age with the protest songs of the anti-Viet Nam war and civil rights movements. So, so many amazing songs. Here's a post of a couple of protest playlists I made. And here is my favorite song from then, What's Going On, from Marvin Gaye.
It's theme of course is only love can conquer hate, and while it's a very deep song, the music is uplifting, even, yes, happy. We still dance to it after all these years.
It's a evolution across the generations. We protest the injustice, inequity, and hate around us. And a powerful weapon is rising above it all, with love and happiness. And, always, with dancing.
I'm not sure Happy could have made the leap a generation ago. But today, this generation can and does use social media, including You Tube, to spark a revolution, or to turn a sweet, silly song written for a kids' animated movie into a protest anthem.
Again, Shan Wang says it best:
April 15 update: Check out Pharrell's reaction to watching the global You Tube videos made from his song on a recent interview with Oprah - happy tears!
Like most everyone else, I love this song. I first learned about it before I knew it was written for and connected to the movie, Despicable Me 2, when a friend sent me a link to the video 24 Hours of Happy. I loved, loved how it featured everyday dancers and the celebration of, well, dancing and being happy! I thought the song would come and go in a few months, like all snappy pop songs do.
But it didn't. Something remarkable happened. It became a global protest song.
The amazing post by Shan Wang on PolicyMic, "How This Became the Surprising Protest Song of Our Generation," breaks it down perfectly. Read the whole thing, but here are a few excerpts:
"The peppy neo-soul song is not in any way controversial. But something strange began happening to it a little while ago. It became a mega pop sensation and an unexpected global anthem for citizens living under troubled regimes.
The movement started slowly — first it was the soundtrack to a video of people dancing joyfully in Paris. But then the song began cropping up in videos from countries in political turmoil. One came from the Philippines, a country still picking up the pieces from Typhoon Haiyan. Soon, one followed from Tunis, still reeling from the aftershocks of the Arab Spring. And then another from Moscow. While not a "protest" song in its traditional sense, Pharrell's "Happy" has taken on a politically charged meaning as an anthem of international resilience...
...Pharrell's unironic and unequivocal call to positivity makes it a strange member of the protest music genre, which mostly targets specific injustices. The 1960s is teeming with examples. Nina Simone's "Mississippi Goddam," for instance, seethes at the killing of civil rights activist Medgar Evers and the bombing of an Alabama Church..."There's more, so seriously, read the whole post. It includes many of the Happy-turned-protest-song You Tube videos and you need to watch them. Here's one, from Kiev.
Amazing. Wang says, rightly, "It is haunting to see protesters in Kiev dancing among barricades and answering frankly what would make them happy. "To be happy I need the Ukraine to be free," one woman answered."
I came of age with the protest songs of the anti-Viet Nam war and civil rights movements. So, so many amazing songs. Here's a post of a couple of protest playlists I made. And here is my favorite song from then, What's Going On, from Marvin Gaye.
It's theme of course is only love can conquer hate, and while it's a very deep song, the music is uplifting, even, yes, happy. We still dance to it after all these years.
It's a evolution across the generations. We protest the injustice, inequity, and hate around us. And a powerful weapon is rising above it all, with love and happiness. And, always, with dancing.
I'm not sure Happy could have made the leap a generation ago. But today, this generation can and does use social media, including You Tube, to spark a revolution, or to turn a sweet, silly song written for a kids' animated movie into a protest anthem.
Again, Shan Wang says it best:
..."that's the magic of this global music culture. Pharrell perhaps never intended "Happy" to be more than a catchy summer hit, but even a perfectly-oiled pop machine can't account for the creative capacity of the whole world. "Happy" came into the world apolitical, but it's something more now — it's a song of resilience and resolve under incredible hardship."
April 15 update: Check out Pharrell's reaction to watching the global You Tube videos made from his song on a recent interview with Oprah - happy tears!
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